MiniBB Review - General Features & Requirements

Wed January 20, 2010 13:42 |
Previous Page 1 of 4 Next
Web Site: http://www.minibb.com
Download here: Download MiniBB
Community Forum: Support
Released under: GPL License.
Current version: 2.4.1 (December 25, 2009).
Price: Free.

From MiniBB website :

Want to make your own discussion board? miniBB ( = mini bulletin board) is a free forum software, original PHP message board script, you can build online community on. Security, speed and stability - three S's of our conferencing software concepts.
Based on original technology, miniBB provides everything to make your web discussions fast, simple and attractive for visitors. First of all, it's a content- and support-oriented board.

Review Updates

  • January 20, 2010: Review update with version 2.4.1 of MiniBB.

Server & Clients Requirements

Server Requirements
Operating Systems
Systems supporting this software.
  • Linux
  • Windows XP
Web Server Details
Web servers host the forum software.
  • Apache 1.3
  • Apache 2.0/2.2
  • Microsoft IIS
Languages Details
Development language.
  • PHP 4
  • PHP 5
Databases Details
Systems that store forum datas.
  • MySQL
Browsers & Clients Requirements
Compatible Browsers Details
List of compatible browsers.
  • All
Required Plugins/Technologies Details
What the user needs exactly to use this forum correctly.
  • HTML and Javascript
Localization Details
Languages supported by MiniBB.
Yes Yes.
  • Albanian
  • Belarusian
  • Bosnian
  • Bulgarian
  • Catalan
  • Chinese (Simplified)
  • Chinese (Traditional)
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch (Netherlands)
  • Estonian
  • Finnish
  • French
  • Galician
  • Georgian
  • German ("Sie" Form)
  • German ("Du" Form)
  • Greek
  • Hebrew
  • Hungarian
  • Indonesian
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Kurdish
  • Latvian
  • Lithuanian
  • Malay
  • Norwegian
  • Persian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Portuguese (Brazil)
  • Romanian
  • Russian
  • Serbian (Cyrillic)
  • Serbian (Latin)
  • Slovak
  • Slovenian
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Ukrainian
  • Urdu
  • Vietnamese

You could download additional Language Packs

Forum Threads & Posts

Forum Threads
Forum Style
General appearance of the topics.
Flat
Social Networks
Users can share information from their social network account...
No.
Thread Icons
An icon that identifies the type of a topic.
No No
Forum Organization
Organize your forum with categories, sections,...
  • Forum Categories
  • Sub Sections
Sticky Threads
Sticky threads stay at top of a section or a forum.
No No
Spell Checking
Posts and topics are spelled checked with a dictionary.
Unknown Unknown
Detect Duplicate Threads
Duplicate Threads are detected before creation.
No No
Shadow Topics
Some topics are only accessible to a limited list of users.
No No
Posts
Post Editing Form Details
Details about the manner to post messages.
  • Rich Text Editor
  • Formatting Buttons
  • Preview Button
 Emoticons Details Yes Yes
Post Editing Format Details
Markup Language (HTML, Wiki, BBCode,...).
  • Plain
  • BBCode
 Attachments Details
Attach files (screenshot, archive,...) with a post.
Plugin Plugin
Post Quoting
Quoting a post helps readers understand who answers who.
Yes Yes Syntax Highlighting
Posted Source Code is formatted using colors.
No No
Post Rating
Users can rate the quality of other users posts.
No No

Key Features & Additional Tools

Key Features
Bundled Softwares
Softwares that are also available with the forum.
  • Pictures Album Manager
 Users List Details
List of all user accounts, to helps users searching their friends.
Plugin Plugin
Private Messages Details
Users can communicate using an internal messaging system.
Plugin Plugin Online Users List
List of actually connected users, in the forum home page, a dedicated topic,...
Plugin Plugin
Instant Messaging Details
Users can communicate in the forum like in other IM softwares (Yahoo Messenger, Live Messenger, Google Talk, AIM,...)
No No Quick Reply Box
Write a post directly from the topic page.
Yes Yes
Calendar Details Plugin Plugin Remote Control Details
Remote control from external softwares or websites.
No.
Poll Creation Details Plugin Plugin Friendly URLs
URLs are as short and simple as possible (for better copy/paste and share).
Plugin Plugin
RSS/Atom Syndication Details
New posts and threads available using aggregators (represented by the Syndicate icon)
RSS 2.0

As you can see, MiniBB works as a minimal container that could be extended using plugins. This explains that most classical features needs to be downloaded and installed separately, one by one.

It could be really hard and difficult for beginners, but, at least confers a perfect way to customize a bulletin board.

 
 
General Features &
Requirements
Next page:
Users, Security &
Customization